Saturday, March 4, 2017

When the police become mother hens

(First published in The Dominion Post, March 3.)

I shudder when I see someone advocating a hate speech law.
So should we all.

Police commissioner Mike Bush didn’t go so far as actually
advocating a law prohibiting “hate speech”, however that may be defined, but
obviously it was on his mind. In fact he’s talked to the Human Rights
Commission about it.

I imagine it would have been a meeting of minds. After all,
it’s the nature of bureaucracies to want their powers expanded.

Combine this with the pervasive school of thought in modern
government which holds that a feckless society needs paternalistic minders to
keep it from getting into trouble, and almost any busybody law becomes
possible.

If we were to have speech police, could George Orwell’s
Thought Police be far behind?

A hate speech law would mark a radical and dangerous
extension of existing police powers: from protecting people and property
against clearly identifiable threats, such as assault and theft, to making value
judgments about whether a citizen has crossed the blurry line between fair
comment and something much darker.

Such a law would be welcomed by activist minority groups which
want the state to protect them from any comment they see as hurtful or
oppressive. But freedom of speech is far too precious in a democracy to be
undermined by subjective judgments from police officers about what constitutes
incitement to “hate” as opposed to a robust expression of legitimate opinion.

Happily, on this occasion both Justice Minister Amy Adams
and Police Minister Paula Bennett squashed Bush’s idea. They rightly pointed out that existing laws are
perfectly capable of dealing with public statements likely to incite hostility
against, for instance, ethnic or religious minorities. Check out Section 61 of
the Human Rights Act, for starters.

Anyway, what was Bush doing raising the matter in the first
place? Since when was it the role of the Police Commissioner to suggest new
laws that would restrict fundamental liberties such as the right of free
speech?

The job of the police is to enforce laws passed by
Parliament, not to publicly float their own ideas about what might be necessary
for society’s wellbeing. We don’t need activist public servants stepping beyond
their remit.

Most New Zealanders would probably prefer Bush to devote his
energy to reducing the scandalous burglary rate, or ensuring that the police
respond promptly to calls from victims of crime rather than fobbing people off - as happens all too often - by saying they’re busy with other things.

But the commissioner’s action is entirely consistent with
the role police have increasingly taken upon themselves, which is that of moral
custodians. Already we have seen, in recent years, a marked change in the way
the police view their duties.

Traditionally their function was to protect people against
lawbreakers and to apprehend criminals. But the modern New Age police take a
much broader view of their role. They have morphed into mother hens, constantly
clucking about all the things we’re doing wrong. They think we need to be
protected against ourselves.

This is most conspicuous in matters relating to alcohol
consumption. The police have a legitimate interest in minimising the road toll,
but their moralistic crusades against drinking resemble nothing so much as the
shrill campaigns of late-19th century prohibitionists who were
convinced that liquor would be the ruin of us all.

They need to be reminded that alcohol consumption is not
only legal, but for centuries has been the lubricant of social intercourse and
celebration.

Of course a small minority of people drink to excess and
behave badly, which brings me to the woman who was videoed shouting abuse at a group
of Muslims in Huntly recently.

Bush seized this as justification for a discussion about the need for hate crime legislation. But Newstalk ZB talkback host Tim Beveridge got to the heart
of the matter when he said the real problem in the Huntly incident wasn’t
racism or xenophobia; it was drunkenness.

The question, then, is whether an isolated outburst from a
pathetic drunk justifies a senior public servant talking about the need for hate
speech laws. Most people would probably think we need a far higher threshold
than that.

As for Bush, he has some ground to make up. He got off to an
unpromising start in his job, being the cop who delivered a glowing eulogy at
the funeral of the detective who framed Arthur Allan Thomas, and his public
image hasn’t improved with recent publicity suggesting he was evasive about
declaring an old drink-driving conviction.

Perhaps he should pull his head in and concentrate on his core functions.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.